Syndication

Weapons of choice

April 2008 Archive

April 5, 2008

Bye bye Bill

I've always been somewhat equivocal when it comes to choice of desktop operating system. For reasons of convenience more than anything else my personal and business workhorses have until now run on Microsoft OSes. I was a reasonably happy XP user for years - even if the experience of using it wasn't exactly a pleasure, it never got in the way of what I was trying to achieve.

Last summer my main office PC expired, and I had to get hold of a new one in a hurry. I plumped for a Dell - their service was exemplary and the PC itself is a nice piece of kit at a very reasonable price. But like a new girlfriend with an STD it had a dirty little secret that only started to bite once it had inveigled itself into my daily routine. That dirty little secret was Vista.

Vista has plagued my working day for the past 6 months, and my productivity has suffered. I've soldiered manfully on thinking that I could learn to overcome or work around the barriers Vista put in the way of my work, and loathe to write off the expenditure.

I was wrong. I know this subject has been done to death, but I cannot fathom how Microsoft can invest the time, money and effort they have into an nth generation operating system and produce something that is so god-damned awful to use productively. It. Sucks. Hard. I could install XP on it, but that's not a sustainable strategy.

So I'm joining the ranks of Apple Mac users, for lots of reasons not least that it will be a joy to be able to work with a Unix-based desktop OS, and to have my development platform of choice availble natively on the move. Add in no more UAC, TextMate and the beautiful display and I'm wondering why it's taken me so long to see the light.

Must say big thanks to Ann for helping me decide what exactly I needed. I'm off to order my MacBook Pro now, having resisted the temptation to head into Glasgow tomorrow to visit the Apple Store in person.